"What do you mean?"
To say that she was taken aback by this question would be an understatement, a severe one at that. Before she went on to explain, she collected herself.
"Izuku, eight years ago you disappeared. We were in hero training when All Might came barreling in incoherently babbling about something to do with your mother. As soon as you heard that you were gone. We spent weeks looking for you, both classes, including Monoma, and the teachers put everything aside to find you. We never did… and ever since then Eri Hasn't been the same."
Izuku had long since stopped eating at this point. His curiosity getting the best of him.
"Who is Eri?"
Momo was flabbergasted! How could he have forgotten about one of, if not, his most heroic moments? Reaching across the table and grasping his hand tightly, as if it were the only thing connecting her to the boy she once knew that now sat in front of her a VERY changed man.
"Eri is a little girl. You saved her from a life of torture at the hands of the Eight Precepts of Death. After saving her, she stuck to you and never let go, you were basically her unofficial father. The day you disappeared, Eraserhead was watching her while we trained. When she found out you were gone, it forced him to basically use his quirk 24/7 to keep her from harming people. When you were pronounced dead, she stopped smiling for good. She goes to U.A. now to honor your memory. She wanted to be just like her 'Dad'."
The entire time she was speaking, Izuku was lost in thought. The added information only serving to confuse him more and more. Everything he had known was wrong. He wasn't alone! He had a family, people who loved him!
"Can I meet them?"
"Who?"
"Eri, my mom… I didn't know I have a family…"
Momo knew this would hurt. She didn't want to do it, but it needed to be done.
"Your mother is dead Izuku. All Might came because she was hurt in a breaking and entering at your home, and she was in the hospital. And Eri… she may not be very happy to see you…"
This silenced him. He sat for a few moments trying to come up with the words to say. With anything to say. And when he spoke there was a very strong determination within.
"You said I was like a father to her… I may have been gone for eight years, and I may not remember her at all… but I'm here now, and all I know is that I need to protect those close to me. If she was close to me at one point, I will protect her. Even if she doesn't like it."
His words brought strong feelings of hope, inspiration, respect, and oddly… attraction? Stop it! Stupid brain…
"I…. suppose I can take you to meet her," she began," But first you need to get cleaned up. And by that I mean a haircut, you need to look presentable. We also need to make sure everyone knows that you're alive. We also need to make sure that there is nothing wrong with you, because you can't seem to remember anything from before you disappeared."
On the outside, she looked composed and in control. On the inside however, she was freaking the fuck out. It was now hitting her that she let a stranger into her home on nothing but a hunch, which in turn came to be true, and that she was staring at someone that was thought dead for the better half of a decade. There was no way this would just blow over smoothly in any way shape or form.
"All that can be done tomorrow, and over the next week, however. For now, we need to rest."
After taking care of the leftover food and dishes from the meal, Izuku and Momo went their separate ways. Momo to her room, and Izuku to his temporary one.
The next day Momo had more clothing, as well as shoes, ready for him to join her in getting him ready for the world he was about to re-enter. Their day started at a Barber shop, where Izuku was to get a haircut. When looking through books, Izuku settled on an undercut look that left his unruly, curly hair to flourish on the top of his head while having his sides saved to the skin. This allowed Momo to see scars under the layers of hair that made it impossible to see beforehand.
Everything was going great until the Barber picked up the clippers, and turned them towards his beard. Before anybody was ready for it, Izuku's hand shot out, grabbed the barber's wrist forcing him to drop the clippers, and said in the most feral and terrifying way possible:
"The beard STAYS."
Needless to say, nobody argued with him. So after paying for the service, him and Momo left the store.
Not knowing where else they should go, Momo led him to U.A. Although they were not there to see Eri, since it was the weekend class was not in session, so they walked passed the dorms, and straight to the infirmary. Momo knew this would lead to a major headache on her behalf, but Recovery Girl was the only medical personnel that Momo actually knew.
"Stupid girl!"
Chiyo, AKA Recovery Girl, was beating Momo on the head with her Cain while Izuku was in the hall.
"You find someone who has been dead for almost a decade, and the first thing you do is give him a HAIRCUT?!"
Momo deserved this, and she knew it. There was no excuse for her not bringing Izuku straight to Chiyo in the first place. So she took her punishment, while Chiyo continued to rant about how a hero as smart as her should have known better. It only made it worse when Izuku decided he wanted to know what all the noise was about.
"Excuse me, but whats going on?"
"She is being punished for her stupidity," began Chiyo before she grabbed Izuku by the ear, dragging him into the room before knocking him with the Cain as well, "And that is what you get for dying eight years ago!"
About thirty minutes of chastising later, Chiyo finally began to run every test she could think of on Izuku. MRI, CET, CAT scan, drug tests, a physical, etc. By the end of it they had spent nearly three hours just doing tests on him.
"Other than numerous scars that you hadn't had before, and the memory loss, you are in perfectly good health, albeit a little malnourished. I want to get a couple people with mental quirks to examine your brain and psyche for anything that our technology couldn't pick up… so I guess you are good to go for now. I will contact Ms. Yaoyorozu when I need to contact you again."
Momo wasn't sure what to do now with Izuku. They had physical proof it was him, all the tests show it, and she had planned on letting him stay with her for now… but she didn't know what they were supposed to do at this point. You can't just open a group chat and say, 'Hey everyone! Hope your having a good day, I just wanted to tell you that one of our friends we long thought dead is now alive! Okay, bye now', life doesn't work like that.
"Chiyo, before we leave, can you help us. We don- I don't know what to do, or how to do it…"
Recovery Girl took on a look of understanding, knowing the younger hero needed guidance more than anything right now.
"Tomorrow, come back here so we can have a meeting with Nezu. He can probably get a press conference running for you and our fallen hero here. Until then, he needs to reconnect with everyone, your friends deserve to know he is here."
Nodding in comprehension, Momo felt reinsured. Tomorrow they would meet with Nezu. Looking at her phone for the time, she spawned another question:
"Do you know if Curfew is still the same as it was when I was here?"
"It should be, why?"
"Izuku wants to see Eri… I told him about her. He feels responsible for her and wants to care for her."
AN: While writing this story, I will most likely be releasing a lot of filler chapters that have no affect on the overall arches. Such chapters will include reconnecting wit the different characters, and this will most likely end up looking more like a crack fic with the ideas I have in my head. Before you all say it, I know my writing is weird, I am sed to writing scripts instead, but I know those can be a jarring read so I am having a hard time trying to frame this is a way that is coherent.